Fallen Love

6 - ALONE

Arael got home and immediately Aaron started shouting at her from the living room. It had taken her all day to find her way home and he probably thought she'd gone out with friends to bunk school.

"Arael where have you been? It's nine at night and I heard that you weren't at school...",he trailed off when he saw her. She could only imagine how terrible she looked. Her face was probably red and puffy from crying and there were tear stains through the dust on her cheeks. The knew her stockings were ripped from catching in branches and also knew her legs were cut up from those same branches of the forest Nevermind what her hair must look like.

"What happened?",he asked softly as he wrapped his arms around her. She shook her head and leaned into him as she cried. The last time she'd cried was almost ten years ago when she had just turned eight and their parents had died.

Cole sat in his car outside Arael's house and watched sadly as she cried. The man hugging her was too young to be her father and she didn't seem to him like the type of girl who cheats on her boyfriend. But they bared no resemblance there were no other options family wise. The man let go of her and moved to close the curtains but not before looking straight into Cole's eyes with hatred in his own. After a minute, he pulled out a pen and paper and started writing.

* * *

Arael quietly walked into Aaron's room and crawled into his bed next to him. She felt him turn over and tried to freeze so that he wouldn't wake up.

"What's wrong, Arael?",she heard him grumble sleepily.

"I can't sleep",she said softly. He sighed and hugged his sister sadly. He knew that what ever happened to her wasn't good and he had a feeling that it had to do with the man in the car outside their house earlier.

"Try to get some rest",he said and closed his eyes as he rolled back over.

* * *

Arael woke up and saw her brother walking into her room in just a towel. She screamed and hurled her pillow at him but instead of a fluffy purple pillow it was a grey pillow.

"What did you do to my pillow",she asked furiously. He looked at her in confusion but slowly a smile spread across his face and he burst into a fit of laughter. She threw another pillow at his head and he stopped laughing.

"Would you quit throwing my pillows around",he snapped as he picked them up. Arael looked around at the shelves of CD's and the mahogany tables that deffinitely were not hers.

She then remembered that she had come into his room because she couldn't sleep. Unfortunately she also remembered that he was in only a towel and covered her eyes in horror with her hand as she stood up.

"I'm uh... just going to... leave",she said as she raced out of his room.

* * *

"Are you going to avoid looking at me for the rest of your life?",Aaron teased.

"Shut up",Arael mumbled as she looked down at the table.

"You know, I had a towel on. Besides, we used to bath together when we were kids. What makes it so different now?",he said as she went bright red.

"The fact that it's been almost fourteen years since we last bathed together. A lot has changed in that time, Aaron",she told him as she got up. He laughed loudly as she walked away.

"I'm going to school",she grumbled as she walked out.

She frowned when she saw a note stuck to her car. The hand writing was neat enough to read but messy enough for her to know someone wrote the message in somewhat of a hurry. She grew more and more confused as she read the message written:

I know that you will never forgive me for what I did and I can't blame you because, to be honest, I wouldn't either. What I do need you to do though is please believe what I'm about to tell you...

You need to stay away from Heath. You would stay away from him if you know what's good for you. Trust your gut. He is trouble. More trouble than me and that's definitely saying something. I'm not asking you to do this for me, Arael. I'm asking you to do this for you. Please stay away from him or I will be forced to make him stay away from you and that would mean certain death for the both of us.

Once again I truly am sorry about yesterday... I don't know why I did it to be honest. Well I guess I do but I can't really tell you just yet. All I want to say is that I didn't want to and I managed to stop. I don't want to hurt you, Arael. You managed to stop me though. You looked like a baby kitten trying to be strong and it made me realise how wrong what I was doing is. Please just don't hate me? You don't have to forgive me, just, please don't hate me, my little bird...

Yours,
Cole

She rolled her eyes at the name he'd decided on giving her. He was about to hit her yesterday and he expected her to not hate him. And on top of it he was giving her orders on how to live her life. The nerve he had.

School was different that day. Heath kept asking her if she was okay and Cole kept trying to apologise. When it wasn't one it was the other and to top it off there were rumours going around that she didn't know of that she had cheated on Heath with Cole.

"Arael... why did you do it?",she turned and saw Heath looking at her sadly.

"What do you mean, Heath?",she asked, worried.

"I thought you weren't like that... and with him of all people",Heath looked down as he shook his head.

"Heath, what are you talking about?",Arael asked as she stepped forward and reached out to him but he moved back.

"We're done",he said finally before walking away in anger as he hid how much it hurt that she could do something like that.

Arael ran up to Kyla.

"Kyla what is everyone going on about? And why did Heath break up with me?",she asked desperately. Kyla looked at her in disgust and shook her head.

"You know, I would never have thought you would be the type to cheat on someone",she told her as she slammed her locker shut.

"Kyla, what are you talking about? I didn't cheat on anyone or anything. I would never",Arael begged her to believe her. Kyla snorted in disbelief and pulled her bag over her shoulder.

"Could've had me fooled",she said before walking away.

Arael stood alone as she watched her best friend leave her. She had no one left but her brother... It hurt to think how quickly her friends could turn their backs on her without even hearing her side of the story. She had never cheated on anyone in her life and to have people think that she would do something like that was something hurt like a bitch.

The bell rang and she slowly walked to class alone. Everyone avoided her and gave her judgemental looks as she walked passed. It felt as if she had grown a second head and was at a freak show.

* * *

She walked into lunch and looked towards her friends. Kyla shook her head and Arael sighed as she walked to an empty table at the back of the cafeteria, right in the corner. She sat down and pushed her food away. It would seem that after you lose your friends you don't have much of an appetite anymore...